Some interesting industry news for you here. Epic Games have announced a change to the revenue model of the Epic Games Store, as they try to pull in more developers and more gamers to actually purchase things.
But nobody is complaining about Steam OS having a monopoly on PC OSs, the issue is with Steam having control of the PC gaming market.
I am exhausted by humanity’s ongoing inability to hold more than one idea in their heads at once. The world isn’t made of good guys that play for your team and bad guys that play for the other team. Can people be adults for one moment at some point this century? Holy crap.
Steam can ABSOLUTELY have a dominant position in one market while attempting to erode a competitor’s dominant position in another market.
Microsoft has a dominant position in the OS market that should be eroded by both competitors and regulators.
That dominant position includes having about 75% of the PC OS market.
Steam has about 80% of the PC digital distribution market for new releases.
One of those facts isn’t tolerable just because you’ve decided to make supporting a specific alternative in the OS market your entire personality. That’s not how that works. Microsoft should be held back from the areas where it has dominance (and that includes keeping them on a very tight leash when it comes to aggregating more studios under their gaming division) and Steam should be kept on a tight leash when it comes to their dominant position on the gaming digital distribution space. Ideally by having other competitors not only survive but thrive and grow to prevent regulators having to intervene in the first place.
Those two ideas are, in fact, entirely consistent with each other with no contradiction. I am imploring social media dwellers to stop treating every issue as a football match or get off the Internet.
Steam has about 80% of the PC digital distribution market for new releases.
So it is a bad thing now that Steam makes new releases more discoverable than the other storefronts that have a larger installed base than Steam?
Microsoft’s store has a close to 100% penetration of home installation of Windows 10 and newer.
Opening Microsoft Store: Boom, top spots for Microsofts properties (Activision Blizzard sale, Minecraft, Candy Crush).
Switching to the Games tab: PC Game Pass, more Activision Blizzard sale, COD Black Ops 6 with a dedicated banner, more Minecraft, more Candy Crush.
Visiting one of Microsoft’s other game stores, Battle.net: 100% Microsoft exclusive. Not just Blizzard games but Doom, Avowed, Sea of Thieves, PC GamePass. That’s unregulated Microsoft on full display. Not a single 3rd party game even available but the rest of the Microsoft catalogue integrated after the takeover of Activision Blizzard.
Compare that to Steam: Huge banner advertising the sale promotion of EA.
Scrolling a bit further down, Microsoft games advertised, some convention for narrative games.
Nobody but Microsoft and Epic are to blame for their huge installed bases not converting to sales of 3rd party games. Mostly advertising their own properties and paid exclusives.
Well, hey, I’m going to assume the army of rabid fanboys doing free PR for Steam helps somewhat.
But it’s good to know you support Epic investing more of its money on funding third party games. We may agree after all. I’m not as much of a fan of the implication that it’s Fedi’s own fault that they’re less popular than Reddit and Twitter. I mean, screw network effects, right? Shoulda given users some incentive instead.
Again, Steam doesn’t promo its first party exclusives because making first party exclusives costs money and Steam doesn’t spend money. They don’t have to make exclusives because they have network effects that make every other game be in their store and give them 30% of everything they make. It’s free money.
Especially if you all flip the lid every time Epic pays someone to put their game on their store first or exclusively then there is not much to be done to leverage anything. Epic could co-market until they are blue in the face, but if nobody is buying any third party games there then a huge banner in an empty store is nowhere near as value than the SEO madness that is vying for placement on Steam.
You’re just making excuses for your monpoly because you’ve decided it’s YOUR monopoly even though some billionaire who isn’t you owns it. That’s not an emotional outburst, it’s an accurate observation. Me being frustrated at how insanely dumb that extremely widespread approach to life has become is emotional, I suppose, but I’d say entirely justified.
But nobody is complaining about Steam OS having a monopoly on PC OSs, the issue is with Steam having control of the PC gaming market.
I am exhausted by humanity’s ongoing inability to hold more than one idea in their heads at once. The world isn’t made of good guys that play for your team and bad guys that play for the other team. Can people be adults for one moment at some point this century? Holy crap.
Steam can ABSOLUTELY have a dominant position in one market while attempting to erode a competitor’s dominant position in another market.
Microsoft has a dominant position in the OS market that should be eroded by both competitors and regulators.
That dominant position includes having about 75% of the PC OS market.
Steam has about 80% of the PC digital distribution market for new releases.
One of those facts isn’t tolerable just because you’ve decided to make supporting a specific alternative in the OS market your entire personality. That’s not how that works. Microsoft should be held back from the areas where it has dominance (and that includes keeping them on a very tight leash when it comes to aggregating more studios under their gaming division) and Steam should be kept on a tight leash when it comes to their dominant position on the gaming digital distribution space. Ideally by having other competitors not only survive but thrive and grow to prevent regulators having to intervene in the first place.
Those two ideas are, in fact, entirely consistent with each other with no contradiction. I am imploring social media dwellers to stop treating every issue as a football match or get off the Internet.
So it is a bad thing now that Steam makes new releases more discoverable than the other storefronts that have a larger installed base than Steam?
Microsoft’s store has a close to 100% penetration of home installation of Windows 10 and newer.
Opening Microsoft Store: Boom, top spots for Microsofts properties (Activision Blizzard sale, Minecraft, Candy Crush).
Switching to the Games tab: PC Game Pass, more Activision Blizzard sale, COD Black Ops 6 with a dedicated banner, more Minecraft, more Candy Crush.
Visiting one of Microsoft’s other game stores, Battle.net: 100% Microsoft exclusive. Not just Blizzard games but Doom, Avowed, Sea of Thieves, PC GamePass. That’s unregulated Microsoft on full display. Not a single 3rd party game even available but the rest of the Microsoft catalogue integrated after the takeover of Activision Blizzard.
Compare that to Steam: Huge banner advertising the sale promotion of EA.
Scrolling a bit further down, Microsoft games advertised, some convention for narrative games.
Nobody but Microsoft and Epic are to blame for their huge installed bases not converting to sales of 3rd party games. Mostly advertising their own properties and paid exclusives.
All your emotional outbursts do not change facts.
Well, hey, I’m going to assume the army of rabid fanboys doing free PR for Steam helps somewhat.
But it’s good to know you support Epic investing more of its money on funding third party games. We may agree after all. I’m not as much of a fan of the implication that it’s Fedi’s own fault that they’re less popular than Reddit and Twitter. I mean, screw network effects, right? Shoulda given users some incentive instead.
Again, Steam doesn’t promo its first party exclusives because making first party exclusives costs money and Steam doesn’t spend money. They don’t have to make exclusives because they have network effects that make every other game be in their store and give them 30% of everything they make. It’s free money.
Especially if you all flip the lid every time Epic pays someone to put their game on their store first or exclusively then there is not much to be done to leverage anything. Epic could co-market until they are blue in the face, but if nobody is buying any third party games there then a huge banner in an empty store is nowhere near as value than the SEO madness that is vying for placement on Steam.
You’re just making excuses for your monpoly because you’ve decided it’s YOUR monopoly even though some billionaire who isn’t you owns it. That’s not an emotional outburst, it’s an accurate observation. Me being frustrated at how insanely dumb that extremely widespread approach to life has become is emotional, I suppose, but I’d say entirely justified.